From Acquisition To Retention: Enhancing Workforce Productivity
Join Sudev Das as he shares innovative strategies for attracting top talent, enhancing onboarding experiences, and leveraging video-based solutions to boost hiring success across industries.
In this conversation with Madhusudhan Nayak (CEO, Worxmate), Sudev Das ( Founder & CEO, Swayam) share his valuable experience and insights about HR, Talent Acquisition, talent management etc,
Key points include:
- The role of short, immersive videos in attracting and engaging Gen Z talent
- Swayam’s hyperlocal and curated approach to finding the right candidates
- The critical metric of “intent to work” and how it drives hiring success
- How video-based job descriptions improve clarity and confidence for new hires
- Strategies to enhance onboarding experiences for both frontline and white-collar roles
Discover unique insights from Sudev, who brings over two decades of experience with top organizations like Motorola, Intel, United Health Group, and Unisys. Don’t miss this engaging conversation!
Sudev Das, founder & CEO of Swayam,
who started his career in 1997 predominantly in the field of Human Resources in India as well as APAC (Asia Pacific) countries. He has more than a couple of decades of experience in his field of Recruitment and Human Resources, working with Companies like Motorola, Intel, United Health Group, Unisys etc.
Madhusudan Nayak, Co-Founder & CEO of Worxmate
Madhusudan Nayak is a seasoned expert in driving organizational growth and execution through OKRs and self-governance models. With years of experience mentoring multi-billion-dollar organizations, product companies, and government agencies across APAC, the Middle East, and Europe, Madhusudan has successfully implemented strategies that have transformed industries such as IT, SaaS, finance, retail, and manufacturing. His deep insights and practical approach empower leaders to translate strategies into measurable success, making him a leading voice in guiding businesses toward sustainable growth and innovation.
Maddy N 0:42
Hi everyone. Today we will be discussing more on the talent acquisitions, right, but this time we have an interesting subject to discuss. We all discuss about you know, talent retention, talent management, talent acquisitions, you know, human capacity and competency and what not, right. But this time we will be, you know, exploring both the sides you know.
With which is more of like a corporate world, but at the same time on the, you know, blue cloud, call it guys who focuses more on who help us on day to day basis, right. And that’s something which is very exciting subject that Sudev has, you know, brought. So today my guest is Sudev who has brought more than couple of decades of experience worked with Motorola, Intel, United Health Group, Unisys brings on board tremendous amount of experience, right.
So I would like to invite Sudev. Welcome, Sudev Thank you for being part of our podcast.
Sudev Das 1:43
Thank you so much, Madhu, and thanks for inviting me to this podcast. Hello, all to all the listeners there. I’m pretty excited to be on the podcast.
Maddy N 1:52
Right, so there, so why don’t you just have a quick, you know introduction about you before we begin on, you know learning more how you have you know helped organization shape up and utilise them the right talent?
Sudev Das 2:04
Sure, sure. Thanks, Madhu. I started off my career way back in ‘97 and it’s been in HR predominantly. I was pretty passionate about recruiting and hence delved into it much earlier in my career and over the past couple of decades have been doing recruiting, HR both in India, APAC and a couple of countries in the in Europe and in the US.
I happen to be very lucky at the point in time when the tech sector was ramping up, I was predominantly focused on tech, HR and hiring.
However, I kind of moved on. I think 2012. I decided to start my entrepreneurial journey with an organization called Orange Antelopes, ramped it up and grew it. Got insights as to how the world works on the other side. Also, it was a validation of kind of my skills, whether I I am able to fish on my own or not because the corporate taught me a lot in terms of.
Maddy N 3:04
Yeah.
Sudev Das 3:04
Recruiting in HR so that that was interesting. And then of course.
You know, continued that for quite some time.
Then of course, just before the pandemic hit, we started heading Unisys head of Talent acquisition went back to a corporate for about a couple of years. But my passion was to kind of move into the non-tech sector and see what’s going on because I believe there was a significant opportunity waiting there. Having come from a small town which is Bhopal and Madhya Pradesh. My objective was to help others like me who was setting out.
Making their careers or trying to struggle for a job enabling them and that is how.
We started off Swayam.
Which is for frontline workers, right from sales to customer service to, you know, delivery, logistics, a whole host of industries that we cover. So 2021 is when. So we formed Swayam and we started off the journey with Swayam, which has been very interesting and gratifying at this stage.
Maddy N 3:54
I don’t know. Yeah.
Fantastic. I’m. I’m quite excited. Right the way you have thought and the way you were driving and giving a shape to, you know, the talent acquisitions. But to begin with, right, I mean I may have some funny question for you. I mean, what is that right while you are helping others to recruit the right talent, right? I mean when you started, you must have thought through that. OK. I also want the right talent, right. So it is like, you know, one is that, you know, recruiting one for yourself to ensure that you succeed, I mean.
Sudev Das 4:26
So.
Correct, correct.
Maddy N 4:33
You fairly have learned right, as you said, removing from corporate world to starting your own journey.
Sudev Das 4:38
True, true. You’re right.
Maddy N 4:39
Like talent plays an important role. If you have one right guy, right? That guy can help you scale like anything that is. One way of looking at it, right? But the question is more on the other side, which is like which you can combine and help us understand your approach. So one is that what I mean today the market is quite competitive, right? Wherein AI playing in very, very important role in identifying the right talents and you know that what sort of you know.
Sudev Das 4:42
Yep.
Absolutely.
Sure.
Right, right.
Maddy N 5:04
Nowadays solutions exist in the market, right? So what I mean, how do you see this or how you know what would be a recommendation for organisations to identify?
Sudev Das 5:04
Absolutely.
Maddy N 5:12
Or adopt the new you know strategies to acquire talents which can help them in driving things right.
Sudev Das 5:18
And I think that’s a very interesting question and I think has multiple perspectives to it. But let me start by kind of looking at the landscape today. So, if we go to look at the talent landscape today, you know Gen Z’s as we talk about it is going to be the one of the largest generations to live in India. They’re about 377 million as of today and today.
Maddy N 5:27
Yeah.
Sudev Das 5:44
Every so in every four people in the workforce, one is a Gen Z person.
Now I think what that does is it’s creates this huge shift which is taking place and about to take place at a very fast pace and a huge context. Now when you’re kind of looking at your organization and saying hey, what is it that I’m kind of building. So you kind of need experienced people who are experienced people who are kind of your top performers who hit it out of the park.
Maddy N 6:15
Yeah.
Sudev Das 6:16
You need people who are average performers too, by the way. I think they kind of contribute to steady the ship a lot, they contribute they have you know you build aspirations for them to kind of grow into that.
So you need a diverse workforce and they are all generations. But I think when we come to kind of a context of skill productivity, you know who’s the best out of the, I think it the by the approach has to be you know take the best take the highest contest. I think the more and more as we kind of move forward it’s going to be a very inclusive workforce which is that it’s not necessary top 10% are your top ten performers.
The context of performers in the context of talent and how we look at it is going to shift significantly and that’s because of the behavior shift that is taking place in terms of people and outlook and a whole host of that. So I think it will be more inclusive.
Same time you will need your guys will hit out of the park. I mean is it it’ll it’ll be kind of very diverse now than it has ever been. People coming from small towns, people coming from larger metro cities, gender diversity, people who got more exposure with visa. We people who are learning capability. So there is I think the way I would look at it forward I think the ability to learn and learn is going to be one which is very very critical.
Maddy N 7:32
Yeah, right.
Sudev Das 7:34
The focus around identifying such people.
Is gonna be very critical and the way I look at it, quite a few of them are going to come from smaller towns who kind of have the hunger to grow, who have the risk, the ability to take risk and try out new things because it’s become very competitive, like you said, both for organizations as for people competing for jobs. And so you’ve got to be standing out from the crowd. And so the question is, how do you stand out and how do you kind of enable?
Maddy N 8:05
Yep.
Sudev Das 8:09
Help on how do organizations look at people who completely stand out? You know and I think that’s going to be critical. The creativity is going to be something which is going to be important.
Maddy N 8:16
No, absolutely time.
Yeah, it’s totally right. So they’re right. I mean, nowadays if you say, right?
I think one of my observation always you know you know be like when you hire a talent, right. I think more than a skill what you always look for is an attitude. All right, sometimes you may find the you know the candidate or your team member may not do not have the skill that you’re looking out for. I mean, not exactly. But, you know, they have the right attitude. So they’re going to, they’re like a go getter.
Sudev Das 8:33
Yeah.
Sure, sure.
22.
True, true.
Maddy N 8:51
I’ll figure out themselves right, so so you know leading to that point, right? I mean while once you onboard a candidate, right, what do you think, what is that one area right or one expert is that organization should be investing to ensure that the candidate from day one becomes more productive. Right. And when I say productive Needless to say, right, contributing the direction of organization’s growth. So how do you how do you see this?
Sudev Das 8:59
Yeah.
Right.
Sure.
I think 2 parts to it. So when I kind of and I personally when I even hired for Swayam, I was looking for people who understood the mission or the vision of Swayam right. That’s it’s easier said it’s very cliched, but I think it’s important. The reason I say that is when I hired some of them, they didn’t have the skill but they had the hunger they wanted to learn the skill.
And at the same time there it resonated. This whole thing resonated with them.
One of the things that I realized and I realised now that most of them are Gen Z so for Gen Z’s the cause is an important thing. What are what is the organisation doing? What is the larger organisation driving towards? Is it environment friendly? It? Does it have a social impact so there are a lot of things that kind of play. I think for us for us to be successful. So I took that risk of saying OK let me teach the skills. I’m OK with teaching the skills.
I want people who have the attitude and resonate the mission of enabling others to get jobs resonates with them. But I think when you’re kind of talking about in the corporate world or kind of the organisations we kind of look at, I think it is important when you, you know what you want. I think the first mistakes we make is you know every job description is templated. But what is it that you as a manager are looking for it does it, does it capture it?
Maddy N 10:36
Yeah.
Sudev Das 10:41
And that is where that starts. The genesis of mismatch that you’re kind of looking for something, but the person doesn’t bring it, but it’s a compromise. And all of that leads to the context, so I think.
One of the most important things is the ability to learn an unlimited I would say from a perspective with AI and the way AI is changing. Secondly, fungibility of skills that I can do, not just one I should be able to do at least two or three things. So if I am in HR, I should be able to recruit, figure out basics around compensation, draught policies and things like that. And I think more and more organizations will start looking at this fungibility as.
Maddy N 11:08
Hmm.
Sudev Das 11:20
Work forces get more leaner as we kind of.
That’s when leveraging. AI think that awareness of tech is again going to be one of the important ones, even in the non tech roles. As to how aware are you with things like AI or things like that. So I I would say the learning and the unlearning, the fungibility of skills, tech awareness, if I may say so and then of course you know one of the important ones is does the person resonate with the.
Organisation or not? Because now I find frontline workers ask me that question. What does the company do? So whether you know, we’re dealing with smaller companies, larger companies.
It’s very interesting to see how youngsters now want to know what the company does before you know. Just saying, OK, I’m up for the job. So I think those are three or four things. I would kind of definitely look at.
Maddy N 12:11
I think you know everyone wants to be part of something big, right? They want to feel associated. And as you rightly mentioned, it’s more of a ’cause that they want to be part of right when they go back, they they want to feel that you know what, I’m in the right direction, right. My career is in the right direction. So see, in your case, right. You know, Swayam is a very interesting subject and platform that you’ve built right for.
Sudev Das 12:15
Yes.
Right.
True, true.
Maddy N 12:36
You know, looking out for people for B2C organizations to B2B organizations, right. So in such cases, right? I mean, how do you know what one area that you think that you know experience onboarding experience matters here, right? So that impact so people may decide you know if the onboarding experience is great, you know what I think this makes sense. I think the organization is great. So how do you know how you know what approach you adopt here?
Sudev Das 12:49
Right.
Right.
Maddy N 12:59
To ensure that the onboarding experience is great because yeah, I mean they, I think the platform that you guys have built is all about, you know, ensuring that the right candidate is hired and joined back, right? So if you could, you know, kind of explain more on that. And I think there’s one very interesting metrics that you talked about and I would love to learn more from you, which is intent to work. Yeah. So, yeah, so how do you say this onboarding experience?
Sudev Das 13:08
Sure.
Sure. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
Great. I think the onboarding experience is critical. I mean and I’ll just backtrack a bit. So what we’re doing in Swayam is basically targeting a segment which is basically people already asked me Gen Z’s which is very visually oriented. So attention spans are low. They are interested only in immersive visual experience. Those are kind of things that you see. And so when there are so many companies wanting to hire you know.
All in small towns, we’re doing a lot of work in rural India, small towns.
And the big companies want to get there. The question is, how do you figure out who is the person? How do they seem? Because I hear this content.
Always that. Hey, you know, that’s great. But you know, I don’t know whether he wants to work or not. So what’s swayam does is 4 critical aspects. One is this whole context of job shots. We call it the 35 second videos that we deliver on multiple social media platforms and short videos. The reason for that is that short video platforms have much better reads. So swam has this very unique model of going out.
Getting new candidates.
At the same time, looking at our own community of 1,000,000 users where we kind of target this. The other thing that we do very well is this whole context of hyperlocal. So now everybody wants to find out people in that location. It’s not like, OK, you know XYZ coming from XYZ location. So I think that’s something that we do very well. The third is because that segment is less text, more visual or more audio. So there is this whole context of assessment which kind of becomes very easy.
And fourthly, which is very important, very important, is the whole curation process.
No other platform does it the way we do it is the curation of every applicant that comes through the platform. Now what this what we’ve discovered over a period of time is that there is something called as intent to work. I am. I want to work in this job. I want to work for that company Now. Traditionally, it’s very tough to assess it. You typically ask that question, you know, so where do you see yourself or why this company etc. But in the frontline workers, it has to be done slightly differently.
Maddy N 15:34
Yeah.
Sudev Das 15:40
And the way we do it is there are three or four parameters, right? So if they create a video that’s that’s the gold standard, right? That I’m interested in you, and I’m pitching to you. So I’ve taken the effort. number 2 is when they are, when we curate these profiles, there is an immediate response from people who create videos who want to send their resume. So that’s the second level. The third level is when you pick up the phone and speak to them and kind of understand or whatever.
That clearly is the final kind of a thing that.
It’s clearly there is an intent to work and the person is interested in the opportunity. Now this is very different from what we traditionally used to do. Pick up the phone and say, hey, are you interested and etc, etc. Now this plays into when they get hired. So you know if you kind of look at some of the data, it’s very interesting. We are from resume is to hires or so to say the application shortlist, it’s about 35% which is very good. The way I look at it.
But what that does is it sets up a candidate with an organization and the organization to say that, hey, there’s somebody who’s interested in me and is available.
So that equation itself gets on a positive start. Now the question is that once you have that, what do you do next? Right. I think that is a very critical part because these people can change jobs like in a jiffy. So if the experience is good.
Maddy N 16:53
Yeah.
Sudev Das 17:07
You give the offer letter, explain them the job and I am encouraging, in fact, so I am done. A lot of this with enabling videos. So what is your role? What is the job if it is described in a video and I I keep talking about one of the QSR restaurants where they had documented this in a video that you will come in, you will fry the samosas, you’ll use this, they will take the order and they are this.
35-40 seconds video talking about the job and somebody who’s doing the job and and the moment people relate to that on a video of 40 seconds 50 seconds. It’s a different experience altogether, so they know what they’re coming into. The organization knows that they they’re aware and then it’s a question of how do you onboard them, whether we, you know, additional training documentation this thing. But that is the biggest.
Maddy N 17:40
Yeah.
Sudev Das 17:54
Area where candidates disconnect when we are talking about frontline workers.
If if they’re not talked to, they will move away. If they do not have a great experience, they will move away because what we have to remember is they come from different diverse backgrounds. It’s not a white collar situation that we’re talking about. So you’ve got to look at your engagement strategy. You’ve got to look at your skilling kind of a context at that point in time or training or learning perspective and.
Maddy N 18:23
Yeah.
Sudev Das 18:24
A clear context of how you would what would the first week look like for them?
Maddy N 18:29
Yeah, that makes sense. I think you know and you haven’t, I think you’ve highlighted a very interesting point here, right? I mean, creating a video that explains the job.
Sudev Das 18:40
Yeah, yeah.
Maddy N 18:40
So that makes the person comfortable, right? So it’s more of like a, you know, gaining the confidence that, yeah, I think yeah, it is doable. I know how to do it right. And if you go there, I think, yeah, it’s just a matter of I’ll getting to know in first day and 2nd day I’ll be more you know confident of delivering it. So yeah, I think it’s a very interesting point, maybe I’ll little diverge into a subject of more of corporate, right. So how do you see, right. I mean when you hire some technical guy to.
Sudev Das 18:44
Yeah.
OK, good day.
Maddy N 19:06
Sales, marketing, finance and all of this, right? Different.
Functions in the corporate world. I mean how they the same method can be applied there. So let’s take an example of a like a B2B company right? So they have like a product people right? Or they may have like a services, people who are focused more on often the services to the customer, to sales and marketing more or less. They know the kind of work they need to get into. So I mean how do you think that this can further be handled and uplift the experience of a candidate who feels you know what this makes sense. I’ll go ahead and join them.
Sudev Das 19:28
No, no.
Sure.
Right, right. I think the transition has to be around when we, if we have to correlate and say hey, how can we trans transition that into something like this has to be around we at the end of the day we are all human, we are hard boarded for stories. So if somebody who’s doing the job is articulating hey, this is what it is. Here’s here are what the challenges are. But it’s a great organization. It’s very interesting.
Maddy N 19:55
Yeah.
Sudev Das 20:05
How you know when we kind of get a job, it is important for us to get social gratification or other people telling you, yeah, oh, that’s a great company.
So that is needed, but that may not necessarily you may not be able to do it in a context, but you can do it in a way of a story, somebody who’s kind of articulating not about the organization or how great is the organization, but somebody who’s doing your job or who’s doing that role to articulate. Hey, here are the challenges. Here are the opportunities. Here’s what the job is while I know, but I don’t know the culture, the context. And if somebody articulates them and this is this is the problem with text JD’s, it’s not. It does not necessarily.
Come out the way you want it to and organisations believe. OK, you know, JD has been given so it is kind of done. The connection is very important and the more and more as we kind of move forward with Gen Z’s taking over more roles you it’ll be interesting to see how they’re so embedded in that story or that context. If it does not resonate, you know, like we were talking the other day.
Maddy N 20:45
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sudev Das 21:06
There are social platforms people check out. I have an offer from here. I have an offer from here. What does everybody think on this network? And that is a validation of the offer of the company of this thing. Now the question is how can you create it within this nobody right now is kind of looking at it and people do it in different ways where the head of a HR speaks about how the great the company is just saying what he is looking at is.
Might be a or somebody who’s doing the job. Can he articulate what is it to be in that company? And I think organizations move need to move in there and these are not massive videos or massive spans. It can be a 35 second video shot over a phone and then I’ve seen this organization doing a lot but that with a job description really can swing a top talent in your favor just because you’re candid, open and there’s a story around.
How somebody can be this thing? So those are kind of important things. If I look at you know correlations of how you can kind of get that.
The other thing is which in in Myspace we are doing is.
There are organizations who have figured it out, they know what their onboarding journey is like, what their, you know, first seven days would look like they have videos. They have this thing, I think at a stage when an organ somebody signs up with you. If somebody’s saying like, yeah, I’m going to join, I think to enforce that if you start doing that at the stage when he said yes, I think the only downside is that, OK, what if he’s?
Sees all that and goes. The chances are less that he will go. The chances are that he will stick on just because of the fact that you’ve made it easier for us. For him. Here are the guys who you need to get in touch with, your laptop, etcetera, etcetera. That is the biggest struggle in any of the organization, the logistics. When you kind of enter and then you like oh shucks, you know, where did I come to the right page or that 15 page documents that you have to sign. But I think it’s deeper than that. If it can be evolved in something like, hey, don’t worry, we’ve got you.
Maddy N 22:48
Yeah.
Exactly.
Sudev Das 23:01
We’ve got your back. Here is how we’ll ease you out. This is what it’ll look like. Here’s a video the manager talking to it and I think async videos are a great way of engaging people with you know what they are in for and what they are into. And I think this will only grow because Gen Z is all about immersive video experiences. If if you give them that, they’ll be there on so. So, yeah, that’s those are some of my thoughts in terms of how we could look at it from a corporate kind of a context.
Maddy N 23:23
Absolutely right.
So that’s it. So there’s so one is that you know it’s more of an experience nowadays not gone other days, which is more of documentation, right, which is more you know linked to your policies and processes and then you go in there and I mean the perspective was very different right in the sense if you go switch back couple of decades right it’s more of like you know the employers reflecting in a direction that you know how big they are and candidates believing you know what you know I’m getting an opportunity to be part of it but now it’s reverse completely right it’s more of like you know am I getting.
Sudev Das 23:35
Yeah.
OK. OK. OK.
True.
Connect.
Maddy N 24:02
Again, then the company is good and you know, I happen to speak to one candidate and the person had a great offer. I don’t want to name the Giant in India, but the person very, you know, very he was very blunt in saying I don’t do a part of those, you know, 10,050 thousand people company, right. And the guy was a fresher. Right. And he said, you know.
Sudev Das 24:04
Correct.
Sure, sure.
So.
True, true, true.
Maddy N 24:27
First of all, I’ll be lost. And then secondly, you know, if I go there, I don’t know. And so they generally will do they do, as you rightly mention, they speak to people within their network, right. And they go to Internet and they are very, very, very proactive, right? I mean we I mean if you remember when we started our journey, right, we would be thinking and if you have an offer, we’ll not just think, oh, you know what, this makes sense. I’m getting my role and what not. I will just go ahead and join.
Sudev Das 24:29
Right.
OK.
Maddy N 24:52
These guys will proactively take steps, reach out to someone in the company, talk to them so that they told me, you know what, Madhu, I was talking to my people, you know, people in my network. And they told me if you go there six months, you’ll now have no idea that what you’ll end up doing.
Sudev Das 25:03
Yeah, yeah.
Right. But I right, right.
Maddy N 25:08
So I don’t know if you’re part of such company when the company is even clueless, they are just hiding and not sure to offer. So you know the the kind of response I’ve got. I felt like, see, people have matured a lot, right? Probably we we might have thought about this ten years later. We’re starting a journey but these guys are thinking now only right so that’s that’s one perspective that you you know bring on board but see there’s another flip to it.
Sudev Das 25:22
Right, right.
Maddy N 25:35
Just imagine and that’s the next point that I wanted to discuss question. So the one of the challenge that nowadays organisation faces here is that let’s take an example. They hire a candidate, right? The candidate is great and I’m sure right. I’d also like to learn more from you from the, you know, the platform that you guys have built, how you are handling it. But the point here is that you know, the organisation of rollouts rolls out the offer, but the candidate may end up giving interviews during the notice period.
Sudev Das 25:40
Sure.
Yeah, yeah.
Go, go.
Yeah.
Today.
Maddy N 26:03
And as we know right, I mean if someone says, you know what I’ve bought, all I can join you in 10 days, the person get literally can get hike like anything.
Sudev Das 26:09
Correct, correct, correct.
Maddy N 26:10
Alright. And they notice.
Sudev Das 26:13
Correct.
Maddy N 26:13
So now candidates have also figured out, but the organisation problem is just imagine the cost that it going very, very high to hire the right candidate. And secondly, it is very disappointing, right? I mean you are waiting for things to happen when the candidate joins and you plan out things well in advance. So it is like it hits HR process, it hits somewhere, you know, to the organisations like a product, you know delivery or services side of it, right, when they are planning things and how they are going to handle it.
Sudev Das 26:22
2.
True, true.
Maddy N 26:40
So how do you see this situations can be handled or how you guys handle it in your case?
Sudev Das 26:40
Yeah.
So, that’s a very challenging question that we try to answer it. It has multiple dimensions to it. But let’s look at it from a perspective in our world.
The longitudability, we talk about it six months is like really long. One year is like wow, you know the person has stayed, but I think it starts and more and more in my experience and talking to my customers, what I found out is it starts with that context of intention to work, right. So there is an intention to work with you, right? If that quotient is higher.
Maddy N 27:12
Yeah.
Sudev Das 27:18
The ability to engage is easier if that quotient is lower then your engagement needs to be really high. Now the the two things that you brought about just now is is the context of. I will check out socially whether this is an acceptable company or not. I will also want to check out is this the right place for me? Yeah, there are 50,000 people as as you rightly mentioned.
But and that’s why I’m saying if you break it down, an organisation has to be broken down to the team that that person is going to join. Now if that team does a particular context and has a particular story, has war stories is is shared with that individual.
Maddy N 27:49
Yeah.
Sudev Das 28:01
The intention only increases. Oh, OK, you know, these guys have gone the extra mile.
4D is looking at it today. It is not an employer’s market, it’s shifting very fast to a job seekers market and the expectations of the job seekers are very different than what it used to be. You know, when you and I got into this. So the question is, are you going to just, you know, do the traditional and all of us have work. I mean, so we know you give an offer and then you know you kind of leave it with the guy for the guy to them. I remember way back.
When I was joining one of the companies.
My head of HR made sure that I was engaged and I was like trying to figure out what. So he used to send me these handwritten notes and with some articles and they put Courier and it’ll all the four weeks before I joined that company, it used to hit me. And I’m like, oh, shoot. Now, even if I have to say no, this is not a great way to, you know, it’s not gonna be easy for me. So I think what do we need to figure out is what are those engagement tools? Because otherwise, yes, attrition can happen within the three months. A drop out can happen before the person joins.
Maddy N 28:54
Exactly.
Sudev Das 29:06
Continues for longer.
The in our case what we do is when we are kind of engaged with candidates, candidates do call us saying that, hey, I’ve joined this, but I was told accommodation I the accommodation is bare bone but I was promised food but the food that I’m getting I have to cook it myself. Now that is an engagement level that we have probably the organization should have had that. But because he’s not confident in articulating it to them he’s a first timer to the job markets, doesn’t know how to kind of deal with it. So there is an outlet which is us. But I think what has.
They have to be these social groups within an organization, the support group, OK, there are 50 people joining right or a month before 20 people have joined. Can there be a community of those 20 who’ve joined who can talk to these guys and say, hey, it’s OK even if you’re our first timer, if you’re a fresher? It’s a large organization, but there are support systems for you, for us on boarding those. And I think those are the kind of things that we’ll have to rethink the whole thing because.
The traditional work, the traditional things, are not working and it will not because we are going with an assumption for a generation which thinks very differently than us.
Maddy N 30:15
Yeah.
Sudev Das 30:16
So that has to evolve and that has to change.
Oh, sure.
Maddy N 30:44
You’re absolutely right but I think I also like to learn one more things from you know the when you say intent of work or intention of work when you say quotient, how do you defined that quotent in the sense you know decide that you know when they fill the form right? Thry would definately tell you I am interested, so they are looking out for a job they are looking out for a change, the first time it is always like I am quite excited to be a part of this organization but would you quantify You know, in a in a way that that’s proofs. This makes sense. I think the candidate is serious about this organizations.
Sudev Das 30:51
Right. So at this stage I’m not want we’ve not quantified it, but we look at it in stages. So the first stage is that you, let’s say when candidates apply, right? So first put up their hand saying I’m interested right then the next stage is would you create a video and so a lot of guys will drop out then, right, which clearly shows me that, OK, you’re not very serious about it. So when then somebody makes a video, right then if he if he’s making a video on submission, that’s a critical.
Transition saying that, OK, they’re really serious about this role.
And then you kind of validate some of the experiences, talk to them that then those two really kind of articulate saying that, OK, you know now this is ready to go from a intention to work. But I think what has to happen even from our side is to be able to quantify that if I do a weighted average and I tell you hey these the scope the I intention to work here is 30% or 40% or 100% that would make more sense to organisation. But that’s something which is work in progress.
It involves behaviours it involves.
The unseen or the non quantifiable issues. It could be as simple as you know the work I got is 140 kilometres from here. I don’t want to go while I’ve got this thing. So I think how do you kind of and that’s where the curation thing comes in when you kind of curate when you kind of ask people the tough questions that the role is your role is there that becomes very critical and now of course while we are there’s a human element to curation but we are moving more from a perspective to AI bots in terms of asking those questions.
And I think that when you kind of attach a weighted average to it, that becomes a critical context in terms of saying that, hey, this is it. However, that’s as good as the next step which is onboarding and engagement because I personally believe that if that is broken at any part then then you kind of have this challenge around that.
Maddy N 32:36
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, yeah, I think very rightly pointed out, right? I’m sure you must be, you know, measuring in terms of what matters most to them, whether they look out for a change and if that is figured out, I think you know that can also give a little bit of a confidence right back to you and back to the employer that this makes sense. You know, so investing because corporate, you know it’s like hey, you know, they go through a I’m sure right throughout your career you must have seen it, right. And that is now happening at very senior level as well.
Sudev Das 32:52
Yeah, yeah, true.
True, true, true, true.
Maddy N 33:13
OK, so one part is good that you know the economy of India is growing, but that also brings in another aspect that now you have more opportunity to figure out, right that is where you know. So I think you would see that lot of such steps are being involved now to very seriously qualifying the candidate, right. So what we talked more on the lines of you know kind of figuring out strategies to identify the right talents figuring out.
Sudev Das 33:21
Correct, correct.
Right.
Maddy N 33:42
You know what skill can help in terms of impacting the productivity, figuring out, you know, the process of ensuring that we have the right candidate. But once you onboard, right, starting from experience of ensuring that the onboarding experience is uplifted.
How do you ensure that you know the candidate is retained right and retention again has seen it, you know, various level differently, right. And again it depends on organization to organization, the kind of experience they bring on board. But ideally you would find once the candidate is on boarded, the person would be there in corporate world at least for a year. But then to ensure that the candidate is actually and it is more of I am referring more of.
Sudev Das 33:56
Sure.
Sure.
Sure, sure.
Maddy N 34:22
The retention or retention strategy for more of non-regretable attrition?
Sudev Das 34:28
Right, right.
Maddy N 34:29
Right, right. So basically, you know, if we are not, if you’re not regretting about it doesn’t matter, but if it’s a regrettable, then you really want to figure out that you know you have the right attention strategy. So how do you see it and how do you guys, you know kind of handling it?
Sudev Das 34:36
Correct.
Day.
So and we’ve had these conversations, some of them with our customers, as to you know, how can you, you guys look at it and and my take is there are two parts to it. One is this whole context of the like you said right, the regrettable attrition or or churn and then there is that you know I’m OK with it. Now if you look at and and I want to look at not just one.
This thing fits all. I think you have to break it up. So if you’re a tech company and you’re kind of looking at, OK, you know, here are my 4 product architects right now.
You’re on my 6 testing guys, OK, at at a stage now that now the question is you’ve got to have a strategy which is you know if if the product is made right and is articulated and it’s kind of functioning well and it’s more on a sustain maintenance mode, the question would be do you want to retain these guys right and retention at what cost, OK.
Basically, these testing guys who now play a critical role retention at what cost because it is sustainable and something like that. I have always looked at or the way I I would in fact going forward look at it is break it down into segments of that. So the way I look at it, retention is not bad, sorry, attrition is not bad, it’s a it’s, it’s the context that you have around it.
So if you have a built in ecosystems within it, you have one tech lead or or a lead which you are kind of OK in knowledge transfer happening.
So then you focus on that lead. What do I need to do to retain him? But if if and that can change in our world, it is like, you know, this guy is critical. But yeah, it’s three years, OK or one year, OK or six months. OK, even if he goes, it’s OK. I’ve got my core guys in. I think it’ll have to be more built around that. And you talked about experiential. So everybody experiences the organisation differently.
Maddy N 36:31
Yeah.
Sudev Das 36:39
And in the past, organisations have tried to play a lot of emphasis on that. Everybody experiences it like wow and everybody is wow and like that, that reality of the situation doesn’t happen. And now as we move forward, it’ll only get further segmented. So if my experience is great and I am growing.
Maddy N 36:51
Yeah.
Sudev Das 36:59
And I it cheques tick box for me. Then I’m going to stay but that is important for organizations to figure out what drives me visually. What drives somebody else?
For somebody else in in my world, ₹500 is more important than for someone else who’s, like I’m entering the market. I need to pick up a skill, and I’m OK with what they do because it is teaching me a new skill. If I’m not able to make the money today, one year down the line and make a lot of money.
So I think that customization or that experience is now has to be differentiated. And what you want to do, whether you are because otherwise.
Trying to do this, you know, retain all retain this thing.
It’s a pretty expensive proposition. It’ll get more expensive, so it has to be segmented in what your priorities are, hence what talent you need and what is critical for you today. There’s a way you can change tomorrow, and that is the transient nature of how I think as we move forward, the business will play out, but it is a challenge. It’s it is, I mean I don’t have one answer saying that you know let’s do this and it works because.
Maddy N 37:44
Yep.
Sudev Das 38:06
Now everybody is looking at a personalized experience, so my experience is important to me. It may not be important to the guy sitting next to me. He’s interested in money. I’m interested in learning. So how do organizations identify that?
And how do does it cater into a larger context? And I think those are important ones.
Maddy N 38:26
Absolutely. So they’re waiting. That makes sense. So the reason is, as you rightly mentioned, it’s a mix of kind of a different generation now, like someone who has 15 years of experience as a different mindset, someone who has two years of experience at different mindset. We are also finding that you know the skills, I mean now you won’t look at years of experience. I think that’s what I keep saying, right. It’s not about years of experience that you’ve worked. It’s all about what you’ve learned within that you know your tenure, right.
Sudev Das 38:37
OK, correct.
Yep, Yep.
Right.
Oh.
Maddy N 38:55
So you would find someone having three years experience is equally good as 10 years, right?
Sudev Das 38:59
Absolutely.
Maddy N 39:01
So, you know, I think people are now looking out for more of skill. That’s what I have seen, right. And they don’t mind paying them handsomely.
Sudev Das 39:06
True.
Maddy N 39:11
Right, and ensuring that they have a lot of energy within them, they are ready to take risk, ready to explore and probably I think 1 area that I’ve seen right automation’s investing more into you know this area when they give them a platform to explore themselves as you rightly mentioned, personalized experience you know, otherwise we have you ever seen right when we started a career like people dancing during the worry time and those videos are getting.
Sudev Das 39:26
Yep, Yep.
Maddy N 39:38
Always I happen to imagine myself dancing somewhere in Diwali.
Sudev Das 39:38
Never. Yeah. So I.
Maddy N 39:45
Right. But.
Sudev Das 39:46
Well, but that’s true. Also. You know it’s it’s the social context has changed and as an organisation you need to recognise that and I think a lot of organisations right now are challenged with this whole thing of Gen Z because they’ve not figured it out. So, you know, Gen Z’s are this Gen Z’s are not this thing not that thing but my take is get down to what what what they are looking for get down to they they are as good more smarter.
More focused, but they need a need, A cause purpose and it’s more important than ever before. I mean, if you’re looking at those smart kids with.
Amazing skills. Three years. They need a purpose. And if the purpose is defined, I think it’s a different level of engagement.
Maddy N 40:23
Yeah.
Sudev Das 40:35
Sure.
Sure.
Yeah.
Maddy N 40:46
In fact, I happened to ask this question and I would want to dig deep, its ok, you know, we should have fun while working an organization should offer a platform but one of the very very important aspect that HR leader brought to me I think a few years back and they said Do you know why this practice have started? Because now you would find in Metropolitan City right you would find people coming from different places. Now you have these festivals coming in, right? People like to go back but you’ll find you know 10-15% of the population going back. But you have you need force to ensure that continue to run right. How do you offer that experience so that they feel you know what I am not left out right. I don’t feel left out I mean I am here I am part of it.
Sudev Das 40:53
True, true.
Cool.
Right, right.
Correct, correct.
Maddy N 41:14
I have other people who are enjoying this occasion with me and that is where you know, HR has taken that initiative to ensure that they feel more, you know, kind of personalized way of enjoying this along with the company, right. And that is another strategy of retention. But they said you know what they feel, you know this makes sense. You know, I’ll be here, I’m enjoying they take the video, they send that video back to their families and they feel, you know what even they feel happy. You know the company is good.
So that is another way of not only brand building, but ensuring that they give you know they offer a platform when people enjoy a lot. So that’s a great perspective that they brought.
Sudev Das 41:39
2.
True, true.
And and, but I totally agree. As I’ve been saying, you know, it’s different strokes for different folks and and it it is important today. I mean while we want to say OK, you know.
And and I understand from an organisation perspective was saying he, you know, this is the policy etcetera, etcetera. But I think we’ll have to get away from that. What it’ll have to happen is if I am delivering what I am in the context of what the purpose is and what you want me to do, then I would need my leave it, you know and and all great companies have done it this you know, when you look at Google or any of those guys.
Maddy N 42:07
And.
Sudev Das 42:24
They started off by giving flexibility and to the context that they said OK, food also free and if you want to sleep here, that’s also.
You know you can sleep, but at that point in time it made sense for people who were doing it. Maybe today it doesn’t. And and we’ve got to recognise it. That was a generation which is totally OK with it. This generation is not they want to go back home. They want to work around where their homes are. So those are kind of evolutions which are taking place right now. But I think the more you accept this diversity of purpose, context.
Maddy N 42:47
Yeah.
Sudev Das 42:57
Experience and build on it the the the more.
Productive or the more better outcomes you would have, and that’s that’s that’s been our experience in some of this when we kind of look at frontline workers, everybody doesn’t want to be painted in the same thing, somebody wants something different, somebody and it that’s that’s the remarkable thing that I experienced on a day in day out basis that the differences are really the differences. And if you appreciate them then you have a great team.
Maddy N 43:26
All right, so there’s so I think that’s an interesting conversation we had, right. And as you rightly pointed out, I think the the attention which you know in the in at least in India, which organisations are kind of or the place that is getting is is Tier 2 and Tier 3 city, a lot of talents, hidden talents.
Sudev Das 43:43
Correct, correct, correct.
Maddy N 43:46
They want to be, you know, around the same place. They don’t want to move around. Hybrid model is really helping them. It’s just a matter of figuring out that, you know, one kind of a thing that helps you identify the right talent and ensure that, you know, the person is happy. You are happy, you get the right things, you know, balanced out and done. Right. So very interesting discussion. Sudev, thank you so much for your time. And I’m sure right. People would learn from, you know, the conversation. And can, you know, may like to apply.
Sudev Das 43:51
Sure.
True.
OK.
Exactly. Exactly.
Maddy N 44:15
So one other thing that I like to share with my HR here is that the onboarding experience of having that video right.
And if that can be created, yeah, I’m sure it’s and I’ll, I’ll. I’ll be excited to, you know, hear more from the candidate once they join us at the how you know, what is their experience? What is what is it they have to say? Right. So on this note. Thank you so much. So there for your time. It’s lovely talking to you. And, you know, we’ll stay in touch.
Sudev Das 44:20
Right, right.
Sure, sure.
Right, you’re right, right.
Great. Thank you, Madhu, for having me here. Thank you so much all the way.
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